Post date: Sep 12, 2010 9:06:13 PM
Cavers: Petie Barry, Al Kennedy
Creevy Cave
Trip time: 1 hour
After refueling in Quinn's when we arrived at Carrickmacross (the journey down from Belfast is so quick now that the Newry bypass is complete) we headed off to Creevy Cave for the first cave of the day. The aim was to do a photograph trip, collecting some more photographs for the next Irish Speleology. We had the latest SUI video light to have a play with as well. All kitted up we headed off over the fields (Petie made a short excursion into Quarry Rising South), noticing that the water level was a little higher than hoped for - i began to wonder if i had been too optimistic following the recent rain. Yes was the short answer to that, as the entrance ducks from the swallet to the main Creevy Cave were sumped. Only a little sumped, and without a bag could probably have been free-dived. I toyed with the idea of going to have a look at the main stream in flood... We abandoned the photography and instead went for a trip in 'Creevy Cave Two', the shorter section upstream from 'Creevy Cave One'. In low water this can be passed from swallet to rising, but today the rising was sumped so we entered via the skylight. Petie took a look downstream from here, reaching the sump, and we then headed upstream in pleasant triangular crawling passage. This gives way to a wide bedding plane, where most of the stream enters from the left (the triangular passage continues straight for another 20 metres or so before becoming too tight). The bedding plane can be passed with a flat-out, ear-in-water, crawl (a tip - keep to the left!), to slightly bigger passage before (again, keep left) a very sporting awkward duck in white-water took us out of the cave and into the small pot between 'Creevy Two' and 'Creevy Three' (Three being impenetrable).
Tiragarvan Cave
Trip time: 3 hours
After de-kitting and eating some post-cave chocolate we headed across Carrickmacross to the Tiragarvan Cave. I hadn't been there for almost two years, and was keen to take a better look at the upstream sump. There was a new stile leading to the Lugadorris Pot, so we figured cavers were welcome although we took time to make a courtesy call at the near-by house (no-one was in). I prepared my dive kit (discovered i had forgotten neoprene gloves) and we got back into wetsuits. We headed straight upstream from Lugadorris, to the boulder-choke at the end. Although i suspect this was always here, it has recently been enhanced by dumping rock and iron bars into it from the skylight reported by Coleman - instead of a vegetable patch there is now a driveway and a septic tank above this part of the cave - and no exit here is possible. A brown plastic pipe drops from the ceiling, hopefully just taking surface run-off but there was a faint whiff of sewage. In the 1970s the boulder-choke under the skylight was passed to a new 30 metre length of stream passage ending in a sump, which was in turn passed to some 100 metres of stream passage. I wanted to get back there. Unfortunately the recent additions to the boulder-choke made passing it impossible, and it's very unstable. However there appeared to be a sump down to the left of the choke. A very brief check of it (in the nip) in winter 2008 had revealed that it was reasonably sized.
The way down to the sump is through a tiny gap in loose boulders, and i started squeezing feet-first through this but when a boulder moved i scuttled out. We set to work to stabilise it a bit more. Petie, engineering genius that he is, simply pulled out the keystone and tipped all the loose rocks into the sump. So now it was easier to reach the sump but harder to get in the water. I went down again with my dive mask and ducked under the water for a look. The visibility was pretty good, up to 3 metres, and the sump seemed spacious. Petie passed the kit down and i kitted up in the confines of the sump pool. Getting in the water took a bit of maneuvering but i managed to make a secondary belay and get turned. Initially it seemed the sump might be very short as i saw an air surface less than a metre in, but this was too small to get into - only a tiny air-bell. Continuing, i had a brief hesitation when i realised i'd forgotten my safety reel, but decided to keep on carefully... I was then forced to go to the left under nice solid ceiling by the tail of the boulder-choke, which collapsed a little as i passed it. After checking that it wouldn't fall any more, i swam on to see a much bigger air surface ahead and surfaced over a mud and gravel bank into pleasant walking-sized streamway. I tied off the line to the wall and walked for the 30 metres to the second sump (the one that was originally dived). There was no dive-line in place, and i had left my silt-screws on the far side of sump 1, and it looked very muddy as described in the Irish Sump Index. Happy to have got this far, i turned back and dived out of sump 1 in poor visibility. Petie had gone on downstream so i couldn't get him to pass me my silt screws, so i dekitted in the sump pool and wriggled out through the boulder-choke. The sump is about 5 or 6 metres long.
Meanwhile Petie had passed through the downstream cave from Lugadorris, reaching Puthewarntagh pot, and finding the way on downstream from here to a chamber described by Coleman. On my previous visit we had completely failed to find this, quite obvious, continuation, thinking instead that where the water sinks again against the far wall of Puthewarntagh was the way on and it had been filled up by flood debris (which we'd tried to dig). Anyway, i didn't find Petie so i decided to have a pee, whereupon he appeared, walked passed me without seeing me, and disappeared upstream. We rejoined instead in Lugadorris, Petie having started to sherpa out some of my kit from the upstream sump. After Petie described the continuation from Puthewarntagh, and that he had found a small 2 metre long rift to another sump, i wanted to go and have a look.
Turning right immediately after emerging from the Lugadorris downstream cave, some of the water was flowing into a triangular passage, mostly crawling, which twisted down to a fair-sized chamber (about 5 by 5 metres across and 3 metres high - epikarst visible in some parts of the ceiling). From here Petie had pushed a very foamy rift-duck to a small 'chamber', from which i ducked a bit further to another 'chamber' from which a small, too-tight, aven rose. There was no draft, but it's possible that in low water the rift could be pushed a bit further. The water was sumping off to the left all along this rift. Returning to the chamber, i spotted a small, dry, flat-out crawl, which went for 6 metres before ending in two too-tight rifts - water could be heard and seen beyond. I then pushed a third crawl off the chamber, reaching a low section of the streamway - upstream looked to be too tight or choked, downstream ended in a foam 'choke', again possibly pushable in low water. All in all i think we pushed upwards of 15 to 20 metres of new passage here. Quite happy we returned to Lugadorris and removed all of the dive gear (line in sump 1 left in place).
Re-surveying the Tiragarvan Cave and pushing the upstream sumps, and surveying the 1970s extension, and perhaps pushing further up- and downstream, seems like an interesting winter project, 80 minutes drive from Belfast... :)
Al